Brand "Knew" Knitting Stuff

Despite knitting being one of my life long pursuits and given the near permanent fixtures in my hands that needles and yarn have become over the last three years in particular its interesting to me that my family, immediate and extended, consistently complain I am very hard to buy things for. No one ever thought of the obvious knitting opportunities for gifting - but as of this Christmas, it seems like they're starting to catch on!

Darling Daughter and my Baby Sister each gave me a knitting mag subscription. (VK and IK respectively) Love it!

In the gift draw for my in laws' family, the niece that drew my name was, despite being from out of town, savvy enough to stop by Passionknit when on a recent trip to T.O. and bought me a most generous gift certificate. As to what I'll use it for? Already did that - I put it toward this...

Oh my goodness its lovely stuff! 15% Angora 85% wool - all the nubby wooliness of an unbleached wool but so much softer and with the colours of the tweed adding an undeniable clean, citrus undertone the overall impression is fresh and young. I'm organizing my thoughts to work up a scarf for Darling Daughter - something wide and long and with a big cable featured in the middle.

My Beloved, a strong believer in the importance of investing in good quality tools, bought me a long coveted digital scale. No more guessing as to when I'm at the halfway point in a skein of sock yarn - yahoo! (A bit of a concern that these two "50 gram" balls are weighing in at less than 100 grams despite still wearing their labels - any thoughts on that? Yes the scale is on a box rather than the counter in the photo but in real life, the reading was the same in either location.)

Number One Son, down in the garage wood shop until the wee hours of Christmas morning won the prize for most original knitting gift with this...

Most impressive is the fact it actually fits and is sturdy enough to allow the counter to function.

I asked him where he got the mini clothes peg from. He clarified its a full sized peg that he reduced down in size to suit the situation. Darling Daughter pointed out that I will therefore be missing one. He further clarified it took a few tries to get it right so that I was going to notice I was down a "few more" than one. I haven't yet been brave enough to check the clothes peg basket to see if I have any left at all! Whatever the case though, I love it and I will use it!

What a lucky knitter I am eh?

Thanks for dropping by!

P.S. Please excuse the "look" of things around here... I started working on the side bar elements last week to bring them up to date etc. and haven't yet finished so I've chosen this template to keep them all at the bottom and out of immediate sight until I'm done.

Ahhhhhhhhh....

I am warm.

I am alone in the house.

There is no sound but the clicking of the keyboard and the blessed hum of the furnace kicking out heat.

I cannot hear blaring rock music or feel surround sound television shock waves. The living room is not strewn with newspapers and coffee cups and the trappings of new Christmas gifts and gadgets being explored. All trace of holiday decorations and Christmas trees are gone. I need arrange no lunch for my hungry masses, prepare no nibblies for what we call "cocktail hour". No guests are scheduled to arrive so the state of the house is not a pressing issue.

Despite a few challenges (Shattered dining table, dead furnace, dead car battery, bad cold or maybe seasonal flu for My Beloved)our holidays were full of everything they should be. The only things lacking (other than good health for one and all) was sleep - due to disruptions from nocturnal coughing fits and knitting due to all of the above.

We visited with family and friends, we entertained and went out to see others. There was a bit of "skiing" (more on that in a later post) and a bit of being tourists in our own amazing city. Both kids enjoyed setting their own schedules and making their own independent plans as well as occasionally tagging along with us. I even managed three work outs!

Christmas morning was an absolute delight as the kids, now past the Santa years, each had arranged surprise gifts to give others, complete with great and amusing stories to tell. They are both smart and witty people and so naturally just great to be with.

Number One Son told me on Sunday that this was the best holiday he's ever had in the city because he watched almost no television - something we have long supported, at one time enforced but which he has now embraced as his own and of which he has now seen the benefits first hand - a very satisfying moment for a parent to witness indeed!

Yesterday, on her last day of holidays before heading back to school Darling Daughter and I went to the LYS to escape the indoor cold, choose yarn for a Darling Daughter scarf and then came home to sit by the gas fireplace looking at patterns on Ravelry as we ate our lunch. Bliss for a knitting mother!

The cacophony of the holidays was fun and well deserved but I do appreciate the rhythm of quiet routine - especially after a satisfying break from it such as we've just all enjoyed. So having dedicated our heat free Sunday to vacuuming, baking and doing laundry in an effort to add badly needed warmth to the house before we baled and moved over to my sisters, Things are in good shape around here. Time then to get my knitting and knit blogging life back on the rails, visit my in boxes and regroup.

First on my list after this - draft a post about the thoughtful knitting gifts I received this Christmas - I wouldn't feel right keeping anything in my knitting world from all of you!

Thanks for dropping by today!

Look Ma No Heat!

Julia over at Kniteroo has a great description of the weather we've been "enjoying" here in Toronto over the past few days - the first real wintry weather for this season.

Here at Sel and Poivre we've been embracing the climatic conditions by seeing just how close to the outdoor temps we can make it inside our humble home. And we're doing pretty well in that regard - as I type this, the thermostat reads 49 Fahrenheit (about 9 degrees celcius).

Actually, our well maintained, recently cleaned and relatively new high efficiency furnace experienced sudden and unexpected brain death mid morning Saturday. The nature of the replacement part we need, Holiday staffing of gas technicians or the lack thereof, weather and related driving conditions and furnace issues across the city yielded a comical series of events that, taken together, mean it will likely be tomorrow before we have heat again.

In the meantime, we've been making due with a couple of space heaters, the gas fireplace in the basement and a day yesterday of laundry and baking to keep the dryer and oven/stove contributing what they could. All those efforts kept our heat loss yesterday to a mere 5 degrees Celcius but by evening when a solution was not in sight we decided finally to take my sister's kind offer to let us stay with them at their house nearby.

So I've stopped by here to check on things and run the dishwasher and the water around the house. My beloved plans to drain the water tonight before we leave it again because if its not fixed until later on tomorrow by then we could well be within striking distance of freezing pipes.

Okay, that's it, my fingers are numb - the keyboard is so cold, just touching it makes my fingers ache! Thanks for dropping by!